Monthly Archives: March 2013

The image on your left is of the Greek island, Samos. The place where one of the most famous mathematicians of the past, Pythagoras is believed to have been born in 570 B. C., very little in known about the man himself except that he traveled a lot, visiting places such as Egypt in his search for knowledge and God knows what else, what we do know is that he dabbled in various sciences and is remembered throughout history as a mathematician, scientist, philosopher and…even a mystic, whoever he really was, I only remember him from the math class back when I was in school, where we were taught the Pythagoras theorem. I recall, it was pretty easy.

But was it knowledge that made his famous? Not at all as you’ll see. The following is a marvelous anecdote about him I came across a few years ago is an eye opener.

While I was checking my inbox this morning, I received an email from Goodreads inviting everyone who had read Paulo Coelho’s bestseller, ‘The Alchemist’ to ask him any questions if any for a discussion group event to be held on April 2nd 2013, as you may know, this is the Goodreads version of another social network’s similarly titled but much more famous discussion group where they invite celebrities et al for a tête-à-tête with readers across the world, now the book itself is something I had read a long way back, and one of those books I had read cover to cover, though I had a few questions I could ask Coelho, I still wanted to refresh my memory regarding the book itself, so off I went to Wikipedia’s page for ‘The Alchemist’.

Of the many things I read, one thing caught my attention, the ‘The Alchemist’ itself was not Coelho’s first publication but his sixth and all of his previous books were failures, while this too appeared that it was going to tread the same path as the Alchemist’s first publisher, a local publishing house in Brazil, after having had very reasonable success with the book told Coelho in no uncertain terms that, that it was never going to sell, and that “he could make more money in the stock exchange”.

What Coelho did next is inspiring to all those Muslims wanting to bounce back and or reinvent, rediscover themselves. Continue reading →

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.” – Gandhi.

I haven’t found a better quote to briefly describe what William Dalrymple’s latest book to hit the stands is about, titled, very aptly I must say, ‘The Return of a King’ – The Battle For Afghanistan. Continue reading →

By the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala I have had the opportunity to meet many top Ulamah and true Mashaiikh of our time and continue to do so, yet, whenever I used to meet these true servants of God, I didn’t feel anything new, any out of body experience as they say…when people would praise a man to the skies, one naturally tends to expect some high voltage stuff to happen whenever you meet them.

As I had mentioned before that I’d be uploading the exclusive dua of Maulana Ilyasji for the workers of tabligh…well, here it is. I’ve uploaded in to YouTube so that its easier to listen without having to download and all. Continue reading →

Few weeks back I was fortunate to obtain the Majmu’aa Bayanaat of Hazrathji Maulana Yusuf Kandhlevi (may Allah have mercy on him) (the 2nd Emir of tabligh) – a compilation of 6 books / parts in one single book!

Many events in the history of Muslims indicate that the Muslim scholars changed the course of history by their influence and guidance of the ruling classes of Islam. Lets look at some of the incidents.

1. Sulaiman bin Abdul Malik and Imam Hazrat Raja Bin Haiwah.

During the Umayyads, Sulaiman bin Abdul Malik (may Allah have mercy on him) wanted to make his son, the heir apparent, but, Imam Hazrat Raja Bin Haiwah (may Allah have mercy on him) advised him to appoint Hazrath Umar Bin Abdul Aziz (may Allah have mercy on him) (the God fearing nephew and son in law of Sulaiman Bin Abdul Malik) as his successor. Sulaiman agreed to his proposal. Continue reading →

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"Our problem is one of spirituality. If a man comes to speak to me about
the reforms to be undertaken in the Muslim world, about political strategies and of great geo-strategic plans, my first question to him would be whether he performed the dawn prayer in its time."
- Sa'eed Ramadan, son of Hassan al Banna.